


Fusion Dilemma

by silveradept



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Fusion Dilemma, Gen, Identity Issues, Past Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe), Pearl Overthinks A Lot, Post-Episode s05e29-32 Change Your Mind, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Season/Series 05 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 11:35:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19197967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: Steven asked Pearl to fuse with him. This sends Pearl's need to think through everything into overdrive. Even if she already knows what she's going to say.





	Fusion Dilemma

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elfwreck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/gifts).



> For the Queerly Beloved Fanwork Prompt Fest: 
> 
> Steven Universe, Pearl, Fusing with Steven
> 
> [The tags do not lie. If you don't already know what happens, look away.]

Pearl always had a plan. It was what made her the best at parenting Steven. For a given value of "best," anyway. Steven always seemed more interested in Garnet's raw power and goofing off with Amethyst than in listening to her perfectly sensible warnings about the danger of what they were undertaking.

And yet, when Steven had suggested fusing, none of those warnings had come as quickly or as forcefully. He certainly hadn't helped any with his reasoning.

"Now that we know the truth about Mom," he'd said, "you probably need time to process and heal, and I thought that maybe being close to her again would help."

Pearl wondered when Steven had become so perceptive. Her Diamond—Rose— had always been much better than the others at perceiving emotions in other Gems. It seemed she'd passed that trait on to Steven, as well.

She had been thinking about Rose's gem a lot more since White Diamond had plucked it out of Steven not that long ago.

Steven was right about her. Pearl _wanted_ to fuse again, to feel close to the Diamond she had been created to obey. And to the Gem she had fallen in love with. She hesitated to call it love, of course, because it was such an imprecise term, but it seemed to match what Ruby and Sapphire had said when they talked about being in love.

But there was also the reality that neither Rose nor Pink was really there any more.

"She's **_gone_**!" Pink Steven had shouted, and in that moment, not even White Diamond could say otherwise. If Pearl fused with Steven, and it was just Steven ("just" Steven, she said, laughing to herself), she wasn't sure that she would be able to hide her disappointment.

Or what other consequences might happen from having the deep-seated hope that some part of either Rose or Pink still survived, apart from Steven, shattered.

Pearls were designed to serve someone. Pink had tried (Rose had tried _harder_ ) to get her to serve herself, but she never felt worthy enough, or good enough, to do it. Ruby and Sapphire had found each other. Amethyst seemed to exist solely for the purpose of proving to everyone that she was just as good a Gem as any other. Even Peridot and Lapis seemed to have found someone else to live with, even if she wasn't sure whether they were together out of love or spite.

She had been serving and trying to be a good parent to Steven, but it seemed like that role was ending, too. She had been trying so hard to make sure Steven thought of himself as human rather than Gem that she often missed that he had made himself stronger as a human and a Gem.

A large part of her brain rebelled at the thought that Steven could make a lot of his own decisions now. He was barely an infant! But he fused with her, and Amethyst, and Garnet, and Connie, too. Most of those fusions had been to fight other Gems, though.

This was different, somehow. There wasn't a need to fight something bigger. It was intimate. And...it was Steven. But it was Rose and Pink, too.

"Are you sure about this, Steven?" she asked.

"Yep," he said, grinning. "It'll be nice to get to know you when we're not trying to save the universe."

Pearl thought about that. It would be nice.

"Okay," she said. "I'm ready."

All it took, apparently, was for Steven to give her the fiercest hug she had ever seen from him, and she was no longer in the house, but in the familiar space where fusions sometimes went.

"Hello, Pearl."

It was the loveliest sound she had heard.


End file.
